historical context

women’s liberation movement 60s-70s

  • ‘second wave feminism’

  • concerned w changing patriarchal power structures rather than seeking equality within them

  • linked to and born out of black civil rights movement, however intersectionality doesnt occur until later

miss america protest 1968

  • hundreds of protestors outside event in atlantic city

  • staged fake crowning of sheep outside event

  • threw underwear and playboy magazines in a bin

  • had several complaints

    • judges women on impossible standards of beauty. protestors called standards “ludicrous”

    • pageant objectifies women and thereby harms all women

    • disliked hypocrisy + madonna/whore complex

    • considered pageant racist, for never having black miss america

    • activists opposed vietnam war + felt pageant supported it by sending miss america winner to vietnam to entertain troops

    • blatant inequality in encouraging girls to grow up to become miss america. standard line in US to any boy was that he could grow up to be president. why not women? why was their dream to be that

take back the night

  • organisation which dates back to 70s

  • campaigned against sexual violence against women

  • campaigned against pornography in 1978

  • exists in various forms + offshoots inc. ‘reclaim the night’ and ‘slutwalk’

  • slogan directly referenced as bein written on banner held by offred’s mother

state-sanctioned rape + sexual violence in war

china’s one-child policy

  • established in 1979 to restrict communist china’s population group

  • designated “temporary measure” but remained in effect for 35 years

  • fines, pressures to abort a pregnancy - even forced sterilization of women accompanied second or subsequent pregnancies

  • policy had goal of preventing country’s population of spiraling out of control, after several decades, were concerns over its cumulative demographic effect, namely country having shrinking labour force and not enough young people to take care of the elderly

  • policy was not all-encompassing rule because it was restricted to ethnic Han Chinese living in urban areas

  • late 2015 - officials announced scrapping policy altogether, allowing all couples to have 2 children